


Rise Up, Little Lazarus

by ScaryScarecrows



Series: Gaslights [20]
Category: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018)
Genre: HE'S AWAKE, Jason wants to go home, he's not going home, his life still sucks though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18251087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScaryScarecrows/pseuds/ScaryScarecrows
Summary: They don’t know, he thinks. None of them know. He’d gotten out, leaving the coins for his eyes behind in his grave where they belong, and then someone had run him over? Or nearly run him over? One of those. And they didn’t recognize him, or didn’t care, or something, and his family doesn’t…they think he’s dead, like he’s supposed to be.





	Rise Up, Little Lazarus

**Author's Note:**

> Happy (early) death day, Jason! (I'll be a little busy for the next few days, so posting now.)

Jason wakes, somewhat, to an unfamiliar hand against his cheek. He doesn’t like it, and he tries to pull away, but—

Is he awake, really? He remembers…something. Another awakening, on a hard surface. It was cold. There’d been…coins. Something about coins.

The hand leaves and he’s just feeling relieved when a stranger’s voice says, “What are we supposed to do with him?”

“We wait,” someone says. And then there’s footsteps and he knows, deep in his bones, that he’s alone. Where is he? What’s happening?

Horses. Coins. What was it about coins?

He’d been trying to go home, he remembers. He doesn’t recall where from, exactly, but he remembers thinking, **Penguin can get me home.**

He’s clearly not at Penguin’s now. He knows the house staff and besides, Dove and Olga would be looking after him like they’ve always done when he’s sick or hurt. And he’s not home, either, because Bruce only has Alfred for house staff (and he doesn’t even count, he’s family), so…

Kidnapped? Maybe he’s been kidnapped. But not as one of the Flock, he’s definitely in a bed and nobody kidnapping one of them would be this nice. He’s in a nightshirt, too, a little rough but not awful by a long shot.

Why can’t he **remember**?

He swallows and tries to open his eyes. They obey his command, and he can see just fine. The room he’s in is small, but warm. Brick. Looks like a…like a…is he in the hospital? Why is he in the hospital? Where is everyone?

He’d like to sit up, but his body feels weak and shaky even lying down and he doesn’t think he can. In a few minutes. For now, he twists his head from side to side. It **looks** like the hospital, all right. It smells like the hospital. But why is he here, and why is he alone in it? With Bruce’s money, he can sit in here all day if he wants. Doesn’t…doesn’t he want to?

Is Bruce dead? Is everyone dead?

No, he tells himself firmly. Nobody’s dead, he’s just…maybe he’s been very ill. Maybe they’re not allowed in because he’s sick with…with…something.

He looks at the ceiling again. There’s one window, way up and small, probably doesn’t open well. Dick could do it, because Dick’s a freak, and Tim could do it, because Tim’s, well, little, but he doubts his own abilities. Especially now, shaky and weak as he is. The only other way out is the door.

He has to get out, he decides. If he escapes the hospital, well, Bruce should have left him a note or something. If he escapes homicidal maniacs, all the better.

There’s voices in the hall and he closes his eyes quick, slows his breathing down to almost nothing.

“—supposed to feed him, I’d like to know,” a woman is saying. She sounds cross. “Pour broth down his throat?”

If they’re talking about him, he wouldn’t complain.

“We do what we can to keep him comfortable,” an older voice says. “Either he’ll wake, or…or.” There’s a sigh. “Poor little thing.”

If they’re talking about him, he’s offended. He is not little. Not like Tim. He hit a growth spurt last…last…what day is it?

It doesn’t matter right now. Point is, he’s not **little** , lady.

This is awful. He wants to go home. Or at least, not be here. It was frightening, sometimes, to wake up to Olga loomin’ over him, but it was always with a hot drink or at least a gruff, “Sleep more.”

Something’s dropped, but he only hears the beginnings of a crash before it’s replaced with a louder, echoing, **CLUNK-CLUNK!**

Coins. Coins fell, he remembers that. He’d shifted and they’d fallen down by his ears. What **is** it about the coins that his head doesn’t want to think about?

No, he thinks. No, it’s not the coins, it’s that they’d fallen onto wood. A wooden floor, or-or something. And he’d been confused then, too, because—

**“RUN, RUN, TODDERS!”**

Shaky and weak or not, he’s upright at that-that **voice** , that godawful, high-pitched scream. But he’s alone in the room…except, maybe, for under the bed.

He takes a deep breath and hangs over. There’s nothing there, but bein’ upside-down makes the blood go to his head and he’s quick to go back up, burrow under the stiff sheet.

And he remembers. He was scared, he didn’t try to fight him, he didn’t, he ran for it because it was the middle of the day, but he wasn’t quick enough and then. Then he’d been hurting, and terrified, and.

And then dead.

He pulls up a hand, half-scarred from wood shards, and presses it to his chest. To the raw, itchy scar running from his collarbones to his navel.

They don’t know, he thinks. None of them know. He’d gotten out, leaving the coins for his eyes behind in his grave where they belong, and then someone had run him over? Or nearly run him over? One of those. And they didn’t recognize him, or didn’t care, or **something** , and his family doesn’t…they think he’s dead, like he’s supposed to be.

Tears come, hot and stingingly salty, and the only thing he can think, now, is that he has to get home.

So he swallows back the tears, scrubbing them away with the pillowcase, and looks towards the now-quiet hallway. Shaky limbs be damned. He’s leaving.

He wills his legs not to dump him on the floor, takes a few deep breaths, and gets up. The floor’s freezing, but there’s no shoes to be seen and it’s not like he hasn’t made do before. He’ll worry about shoes and real clothes later. He just needs to figure out where he is and make his way home.

He feels like he’s forgotten how to walk, and his knees are knocking together, but he manages to make his way to the door before he needs to stop and lean against the wall. The hall’s empty and when it stays that way, he leans out more until he sees two big doors. Okay.

**You can do it. C’mon.**

He looks both ways, because telling strangers that ‘yeah, I’m Bruce Wayne’s second…son…ward…child, reports of my death were greatly exaggerated’ is not going to go well. That’d just get him sent to Arkham or worse.

Empty. Perfect.

He stumbles towards the doors and **wow** he’s never been so out of breath from just **walking** before.

**Could be the punctured lung…**

He makes it there, wrestles a little with the knobs before shoving the left one open, and takes a beam of sunlight to the face.

He’s in Gotham-he’d know that bloody smog smell anywhere-but where, exactly? Yeah…he’s…not sure. It’s cold, that’s basically all he knows, and he. Needs. Clothes.

The ‘where’ is solved fast enough. He’s not far from Petticoat Lane, and it’s packed enough that nobody pays a boy in a hospital gown any mind. Death has not dulled his theft skills, and he tries to take note of where he picks things up, but he’s thinking Bruce will just have to come and give everyone money later.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s dressed enough to wander around and munching on a roll (seemed the safest thing, it’s bland). Okay. Home. Home is…home is…home is too damn far. But Penguin has a pub near here, and if he’s lucky, one of the men he knows will be working it, and they can help him get home. Or at least let him sit for a few minutes without being mugged.

And honest, that’s his plan. It just…goes sideways, horribly sideways, when he reaches up to swat away a fly and smacks his fingers into a dart sticking out of his neck. He claws it out, already panicking, and has enough time to see a man with a sword invade his personal space before he goes under.

THE END


End file.
